God & Objective Morals

[FallentoReason]

I found that exchange interesting as well. I also found your reasoning sound. Recently this problem has been something I ponder much. I offer the following thoughts.

You're my favourite member. So I'm all ears

My particular interest, like yours, revolves around what it actually means to say something is objective. You apply the term objective to physically definable things and systems. I consider physical things quantifiable, i.e. measurable, expressible as empirically observable processes, or capable of being defined as algorithms. (I welcome further additions or refinements to this notion of ‘objective’.)

I agree with you here.

If morality is indeed objective, then it is reduces to a physically process. Since physical processes are definable by algorithms and algorithmic processes are quantifiable, it follows that objective morality is quantifiable. But morality is not quantifiable, therefore morality cannot be objective.

Wouldn't morality be an abstract concept? I mean, what does it mean for morality to be a "physical" thing? Does that mean that we can literally see the good in certain actions, we can actually point to a physical thing and say "look, that's 'goodness' right there". I may have confused by what you meant as a "process" here.. maybe not, I'm not sure.

Either way, I think for morality to be objective, it means that we can come to know of it a priori since we don't require anything physical or a posteriori to reasonably know if something is right or wrong.

Indeed, moral dilemmas express a qualitative aspect of life. In order to reduce morality to physics, you must be able to measure degrees of subjective experiences, like suffering and pleasure, as quantifiable brain states. I find that highly unlikely, given my own position on the mind/body relationship. Also it seems inconceivable that you could make a formula of measurable units, like electro-chemical life processes, that has an outcome like 52% moral & 48% immoral.

I'm not too sure how morality would work physically... an interesting proposition though.

Considering the above analysis of objectivity with respect to morality, does it follow that morality is arbitrary. It seems to me that objective may not serve as the appropriate way to evaluate moral problems. Perhaps it might be better to focus on whether morality is arbitrary or not. Are there consistent guides, of whatever origin, you can apply to determine if something is fair or just?

If morality is ultimately arbitrary, then what does it mean for something to be "fair", "just" or even "good"? Our moral compass doesn't do us any good if morality is arbitrary.